Geography: Yorkshire, Humberside. Part of the East Riding of Yorkshire council area.

Main population centres: Beverley, Hornsea, Hedon, Withernsea.

Profile: The eastern part of the East Riding of Yorkshire, covering the rural hinterland of Hull, the traditional market town of Beverley to the north and then out to the east Yorkshire coast and the farmland and rural villages of Holderness. Outside Beverley itself this is mostly agricultural, particularly pig farming, though there is also some industrial development including gas terminals on the North sea coast and the Salt End chemical works and power plant on the Humber estuary, close to the boundary with Hull.

Politics: The seat and its predecessor Beverley were both consistently Conservative seats but by 2001 it had become one of their most narrowly held seats. As the outgoing MP James Cran neared retirement he was accused by opponents as being inactive and nicknamed "the invisible Cran" - there was a possibility for a surprise Labour gain here, but in the end it was retained by the new Conservative candidate, Graham Stuart who has since built up a solid five figure majority.

Current MP

GRAHAM STUART (Conservative) Born 1962, Carlisle. Educated at Gelnalmond College and Cambridge University. Former publisher. Cambridge councillor 1998-2004. Contested Cambridge 2001. First elected as MP for Beverley and Holderness in 2005.

This is an interesting seat. The Tory % majority over Labour in 2010 was about three quarters the size of the 1992 majority. As such, I think there has been some drift towards Labour, but not as much as seemed the case in the early 2000s.

Perhaps it’s one of these seats where there is some underlying trend in both directions.
It gets complicated where faded resorts correlate with a white working class tradition.
But that is not all of the seat – some of it will be like the Haltemprice area.

Maybe the much higher Labour vote was a bit of a New Labour vote that is rather related to political factors than long term.

The Tories look like they should hold on with decent majorities barring big demographic shifts.

There was a lot of talk about Labour doing well in the Holderness part of the seat a few years ago but they appear to have fallen back. The Tories probably led Labour by two to one there in 2010, but not on a terribly high share of the vote. I suspect UKIP and the BNP did quite well in those parts.

James Cran was lazy, hardly ever spoke in parliament, and turned a safe seat into a marginal! Things are better now because Graham Stuart has a high profile, and in fairness to him, works the constituency well.

“…faded resorts correlate with a white working class tradition” describes Withernsea quite well. Is it just a tradition that retirees living in seaside towns are more likely to vote Tory? It certainly doesn’t strike you as affluent, maybe it will be good UKIP territory.

Tim- the Tories did manage a 2.8% swing in Yorkshire and North Lincs in 2001 compared with 1.8% in Great Britain generally. The Conservative vote share increased by 2.3% points, the joint second highest vote increase of all the regions.

“it would have been close given that cran was so lazy his personal vote would have been negligible” – Cran was still the candidate in 2001 & didn’t retire until 2005. There’s no conditional about it. His poor constituency record was a factor in the Labour surge but I’d submit a minor one.

You mention Burton, HH, but in fact William Bass of the great brewing family was a Liberal rather than a Tory. Some notable brewers have been Tory MPs however, such as Harry Mackeson (Hythe) & Sir Richard Wells (Bedford), who represented the seats in which they brewed, and Esmond Bulmer who represented Kidderminster although the great cider brewery which bears his name is in Hereford. Des Turner who was Labour MP for Brighton Kemptown until 2010 is a very rare Labour brewer – he was briefly a partner in the short-lived Martlet brewery of Eastbourne which existed in the late 70s & early 80s.

Lots of academics from Hull University and public sector workers live here.

Labour have traditionally been stronger in Beverly Minster and Holderness South.

The 1983 – 1997 Beverley constituency that was based on Haltenprice (West Hull suburbs) and Beverley Minster and Beverley St Mary’s wards (not including Beverley Rural) could actually be a Labour longshot were it still to exist.

My girlfriend is from Withernsea. Quite a working class area the main employer seems to be Withernsea High School, serves Hedon, Patrington and Otringham too. It isn’t the first South East Holderness by election in the last five years. Labour came reasonably close last time as well. Labour came close to winning this seat in 1997. Graham Stuart though seems to be a decent enough MP. The Primary Care Trust and now the Clinical Commissioning Group are obsessed with closing down the minor injuries unit. Graham Stuart has been at the forefront of the campaign and sent everyone involved a thank you letter from Parliament

If this were as widespread among the general population as it seems to be among councillors especially, what a debauched country we would live in. Short of murder there are few worse crimes than scarring an innocent child for life IMO

Yes, priests/teachers/social workers/Cllrs/etc being ‘trusted’ and ‘getting away with it’ were highlighted in several reports from N Wales and Rotherham to the film Spotlight [which I can recommend if you haven’t seen it yet].

Re nationally and MPs – which still has yet to be revealed and may never fully be – I suspect because it goes on in all Parties, no Party HQ reveals even those they’ve heard about in other Parties. ie both Govt & Opposition Whips had/have their black books.

The Libs/LDs are a special case in that they had so few MPs that all knew about Cyril Smith.

Richard – although as HH has rightly pointed out previously, some of those recently convicted (eg one was an ex RC priest & Tory Assoc dep chair & candidate in Lpool) are mere council candidates or backbench cllrs with no power.

It may just be that local politics attracts a disproportionate amount of egotists and oddballs?

Derek Hatton said he preferred being, “a big fish in a small pond…” when asked why he never sought to be an MP like Terry Fields in the ’80s.

I’ve only attended half a dozen local Counts in 3 council areas in the NW, so it isn’t representative, but there were a fair number of just odd people there. Of course some may just be eccentric or suffer from Asperger’s rather than be secret abusers, but I do wonder if local govt just attracts a disproportionate number of those who couldn’t ‘make it’ in their professions? (if they had one). It isn’t just a recent phenomenon either (recent selections could be blamed on small ward Parties), as most current cllrs were first selected decades ago.

I’ve been to a count every year since 2010 maybe I’m a bit odd. From my experience the odd people in the party don’t tend to go to the count. Though I’ve met a few that do.

I think some people just aren’t that interested. Certainly neither of my parents weren’t interested in anything more than the county council. Perhaps they are a bit odd. Mum did run for member of parliament but that was only because she’d been asked and there wasn’t much likelihood of winning.

I find most people in local politics aren’t interested in the work it requires to be an MP. As a councillor you can get by with case load along with your main disposable income. MP is a full time job which requires more time spent on case work. Plus it might be my own personal views coming through but being an MP takes you away from home and not everyone wants to spend their days and nights in Westminster

I particularly agree with Matt’s last point re some wanting to be councillors but not necessarily MP’s, its a personal ambition of mine to perhaps one day become a local councillor but I’m not really bothered about becoming MP, too many drawbacks, plus I doubt I’d survive the vetting process, even for a Corbynista I’ve said some pretty controversial things that for the record I still stand by.

@Rivers like what have he said? If people who’ve done the things Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbot can become MPs then you have nothing to worry about. Plus at least based on your comments on here you seem fairly measured and reasonable unlike the above three…

Pepps/Tristan
Perhaps your right but I was almost suspended from uni in my second year cos I tried to start a campaign informing the cities homeless on what I perceived to be the high value of a uni library card, £3.50 for the year for which they get a warm and secure place to sleep since the campus libraries are open 24 hours, semi adequate bathroom and washing facilities, access to free water from the fountains and free fruit which my uni library gave out, computer access for job searches and emails etc not to mention access to the books. The idea was to accept donations to pay for cards or accept valid but not required cards from students who were deferring and such.

Suffice to say it all ended before it really began when my personal tutor found out what I was planning and told me outright that if I proceeded I’d almost certainly be suspended, apparently the university “isn’t a shelter” 🙁

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